


Stay

by justthismorning



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Introspection, Moving On, Post-Endgame, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 02:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16630967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justthismorning/pseuds/justthismorning
Summary: In the direct aftermath, Ignis fights his own internal struggle.Major spoilers for the end of the game and chapter 9/10.





	Stay

When Ignis had first felt the heat, he’d thought it was from the flames of a daemon. It is only after, in the eerie stillness of the decimated citadel that he realizes it had been the first tentative rays of the returning sun. He kneels now, among the black ichor left bubbling behind after the Iron giants, the clang of his daggers falling to the ground still ringing in his ears. He feels the grit beneath his hands. He’s alone, at least for the moment: Gladio and Prompto had run up the stairs, charging for the throne with their weapons firmly in hand while all Ignis could do was remain, rooted to the spot.

Ignis knows what will be there waiting for them. He doesn’t know the details but he can feel it low in his belly, even if his weapons, still whispering to him instead of dematerializing, hadn’t tipped him off. He figures he’ll follow the others eventually. He just needs a moment to catch his breath.

He’s sitting on his knees, face tipped toward the sun, when Prompto returns. The dust of the abandoned city is biting into his palms, sticking to the sweat and digging under his skin. 

“I need to see him,” he says before Prompto can say anything. 

“Ignis,” Prompto says, but Ignis just turns his face in Prompto’s direction.

“Please,” he says, and Prompto takes his elbow and leads him up the stairs, to the elevator. 

Their feet scrape against the dirty floor of the throne room and Ignis stumbles on a pile of rubble. There is movement above them.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” Gladio’s voice is hard, and angry, but it wobbles just the same, sounding thick and broken. 

Prompto shifts between his feet, accidentally kicks a pebble and sends it skittering across the floor, where it pings loudly against what might be a pillar. Ignis stands tall, facing Gladio’s voice, coming down from the throne.

“Iggy wanted to see,” Prompto says, in a tiny voice, to which Gladio only growls but doesn’t dissent.

Ignis takes it as an invitation and starts forward cautiously, Prompto catching up a moment later to guide him up the stairs. Ignis has never been this close to the royal seat and part of him feels like he’s misbehaving, but he presses forward. Step after step he fights down the desire to turn and flee while simultaneously being tugged forward with what feels like an anchor in his belly. His breathing is loud and ragged; he can’t get it under control. Was the throne always this far away from the chamber floor? Finally, finally, Prompto stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Gladio has him,” Prompto says, slides his hand down Ignis’ arm to his wrist and then guides him down to kneel once more in mimicry of how Prompto had found Ignis before. Ignis’ fingers skate over Gladio’s skin, still hot and tacky from the battle, and then he reaches something else.

“Noct,” he tries to say, but it catches behind his teeth and sticks there. Noctis is cradled in Gladio’s lap, his face turned upward and Ignis traces the features gently as though he could still be hurt. His eyes are closed, his long lashes fanning over cooling cheeks. His mouth is open, and Ignis traces his fingers lower, down to Noct’s chin, pressing upward until Noct’s mouth is closed. 

“Highness,” Ignis whispers, and Gladio doesn’t resist when Ignis clumsily pulls Noct into his own lap, presses Noct’s head into his chest and rocks him. Ignis doesn’t cry. Tears will not undo what has been done. Still, his right eye prickles all the same and he focuses instead on the dull ache of his left eye, the scar around it feeling particularly brittle and stretched thin, focuses on the way the memory of pain still throbs behind it after a long night of fighting.

“Iggy,” Prompto says, his voice timid, and Ignis lets Gladio take Noct back. When he stands, his knees protest with a pop, one more reminder of how much time he spent waiting for Noct to return only to be wrenched from his side once more. He walks with Prompto, carefully stepping around the rubble. 

Neither speaks until they’re back outside overlooking the city. Ignis has nothing to say, and he wonders if it’s the same for Prompto, or if it’s something else that keeps him silent. The sun is warm on his cheeks and he should be celebrating their victory but he just can’t stop shivering.

-

They stay in the citadel, in one of the meeting rooms where most of the exterior wall is undamaged, bedrolls spread out on the floor, far away, so far away from each other. They find an uneasy rhythm, moving around each other, never connecting, never mentioning what Gladio had to do after Ignis and Prompto left him with Noct. Selfish, selfish, Ignis calls himself when he thinks that he left Gladio to do it alone, but he doesn’t ask where Gladio has laid him and Gladio doesn’t bring it up.

It’s been two days. Ignis sits on a short stone wall in the courtyard - the same one behind which they’d taken cover from Ifrit - and listens to the wind creep through the dead city. In the distance, metal groans and Ignis imagines a building sagging against its own broken bulk, just waiting for a chance to collapse. He wonders if he looks the same way, creaky and brittle, barely hanging on.

There is a throbbing void sitting deep in his throat, making it hurt to swallow. It’s worse than the nagging sensation that he should be doing something, something for Noct, despite there being nothing left to do.

There are footsteps behind him. Quick, stuttering movement, an insecure shuffle followed by a falsely confident half skip that all betrays the owner’s identity.

“Have a seat, Prompto,” he says and pats the empty space beside him.

He’s met by silence first, then the stiff rustle of the kingsguard uniform as Prompto settles next to him. “It’s creepy how you do that,” Prompto says at last. “It’s like you’re a better hunter now that you’re - you know..”

“I assure you,” Ignis says, “I’m at a distinct disadvantage without my sight.”

Prompto doesn’t respond and they lapse back into silence. The liquid warmth of the sun paints their faces and the air is eerily quiet without the beastial sounds of daemons converging from every direction. 

The city won’t stay silent for long. Already, phone calls have come in from Lestallum, from keen hunters, even Cindy, expressing delight at having unfettered access to the ruins of the city and all the salvageable treasures contained therein. Gladio had held them off thus far but even Ignis knows it would be wasteful to not scavenge what they can before it becomes too weather damaged or the city becomes too treacherous to traverse.

“Will you stay here, or go?” Prompto says at last. There’s a dull repeating thud and Ignis imagines Prompto kicking his heel against the wall, restless or nervous or both.

Ignis pauses. A bird is calling out, haunting and lonely. The wildlife only just finding its way back in means the call will likely go unanswered. Ignis waits all the same, waits until he’s sure. Finally he tips his head in Prompto’s direction.

“I have not decided,” Ignis says at last.

“I’m gonna go,” Prompto says, his voice so quiet Ignis has to strain to hear him. The thumping of his heel quickens. “There are too many ghosts here.”

Not literal ghosts. Literal ghosts would be easy to handle, even as seperated as they have become. But these faded, jagged memories that snag against the periphery of every thought, every word, are not so easily managed. They bite and claw for attention the way no daemon ever could. 

Ignis reaches out and touches Prompto’s wrist, feathering his fingers over the slightly raised barcode there, exposed after all these years. “Gladio?” Ignis asks, and he can feel Prompto shrug, his whole body moving with it.

“Dunno,” Prompto says. “He doesn’t say anything to me ever, unless he’s yelling at me to get lost.” He pulls his arm away from Ignis and if Ignis is correct, the rustle of clothing means that Prompto has crossed his ankle over his knee, the action providing two-fold: folding over his own lap ever so slightly at the same time as building a barrier between them. 

“I’m sorry,” Ignis says, knowing the part that Prompto is leaving out, knowing the silence that has descended upon them. Gladio gives Ignis updates, Ignis tells them when dinner is ready, and Prompto bounces from one to the other, always on the verge of saying something but stopping himself at the last minute.

Ignis smooths his hands over his knees. His mouth is dry from lack of conversation, or from talking more in the last fifteen minutes than in the three days since -.

“I have these dreams,” Ignis says at last, and Prompto sucks in a startled breath but says nothing. “They’re always the same. I’m standing at the foot of the dais looking up to an empty throne, waiting for instructions from a king who is not there.”

“Ignis,” Prompto says, his voice trembling, but Ignis waves his hand and Prompto doesn’t say whatever it was he wanted to say.

“I stand there, waiting for Noct to come sit his throne, waiting for commands until I realize that I’m not longer a man, but a pile of sand, occasionally stirred by the wind but inconsequential and fleeting all the same.” Ignis inhales through his nose, holds it until his chest burns, and then releases it slowly, his jaw aching from his as-yet unspilled tears. Prompto fidgets beside him, each whisper of movement echoing against the broken concrete of the city. 

Prompto’s phone buzzes at his hip, incessant and obnoxious, the ring tone something jingling and cheerful. It clatters on the ground, no doubt as Prompto tries to silence it and fumbles it, and it continues to vibrate at their feet, skittering across the pavement until it nudges against Ignis’ boot. 

Ignis bends to fetch it. It’s warm from being in Prompto’s pocket, warm against Ignis’ icy fingers, and for a second, Ignis just holds it. Prompto clears his throat, not in a pointed way, more awkward than anything, and Ignis presses the device back into Prompto’s hand.

“I will go with you,” Ignis says at last. “If you’d have me, Prompto. As I suspect Gladio would choose to do as well.” He doesn’t add the last bit, that he has nowhere else to go, knowing it to be unfair a burden on Prompto. 

Prompto’s hand lands on Ignis’ shoulder, pats him once and then rests there. Ignis would have startled, had he not been forewarned by the creak of leather flexing. As it is, Ignis just bows his head in Prompto’s direction.

“Thanks,” Ignis thinks he hears Prompto say. It could have just been the wind, tracing a path through the crumbling streets of Insomnia.

-

Ignis’ phone is long out of batteries. It had been for several days. His charger is tucked in his pack at the end of his bedroll, all of which Prompto had dutifully fetched the first morning from where they’d stashed them all when they first arrived in Insomnia. He doesn’t charge it though. He hates the way the computerized voice chirps the name of whomever is calling, hates the way it reminds him about the life continuing outside the city walls. He figures that anyone calling him will get what they want from Prompto or Gladio. Prompto calls Cindy every night after he thinks Gladio and Ignis have gone to sleep. Ignis can only ever make out half of what Prompto says, but his voice is broken and pleading, as though she can fix the ache that’s settled over them all like the cold embrace of the Vesperpool waters. 

The last person to call Ignis had been Iris, her repeated name breaking the pre-dawn quiet, and Ignis had simply rolled over, silenced the alert and gone to make breakfast before the other two awoke. The phone must had died shortly after that because it hadn’t bothered him since.

He’s setting out a meal of cold cuts on stale bread across the large meeting room table when he hears Gladio’s phone vibrate and then Gladio’s gruff hello. There’s silence for a few seconds while Gladio listens to the caller, and then another type of silence entirely that Ignis can feel across the back of his neck. He pretends to be taking inventory of their scarce food supplies but he knows Gladio isn’t buying it.

He hears Gladio’s feet scuff against the moth eaten carpet, feels the warm plastic of Gladio’s phone smack against his arm.

“The hell, man,” Gladio growls. “You dodging Cindy’s calls or something?”

Ignis shrugs and then takes the phone when Gladio smacks him with it again. He doesn’t say hello but Cindy must hear something because her achingly sweet voice fills the silence immediately, seeping into his bones and nudging into the hollow spaces between. 

“Honey, I near enough thought you up and died on me,” she says.

Ignis sighs and shoots a glare in what he thinks is still Gladio’s direction. “My apologies,” Ignis says. “I had no intention to cause concern.”

Cindy laughs gently. “Nothin’ to worry about, darling. I have my little birdies tellin’ me what I need to know.”

“You mean Prompto.” Ignis meant it as a question but it comes out flat, like everything he says lately. 

She smiles with her voice anyway and says, “Him too. Mostly I have Gladio keepin’ me updated. Between you and me, Prompto could sure use a friend right now.”

Ignis isn't sure how to answer that so he doesn't, trusts Cindy to fill the void his silence carves into their conversation. She doesn't disappoint.

“Look honey,” she says, her voice slower and more careful then Ignis deserves. “I've been holdin’ ‘em off long as I can, but eventually I gotta let 'em in.”

“I understand,” Ignis says and he does, or at least part of him does. The nasty selfish part of him would rather burn the city to the ground than let the others in, with their hands outstretched and their minds closed. 

Cindy doesn't respond right away, and the silence bends and warps between them, crackling in the empty space from phone to phone.

“You let me know when you're ready,” she says at least.

“I'm ready now,” Ignis says, ignoring the way the words taste like ash against his tongue, dry and bitter.

Cindy sighs. “No you ain't,” she says gently. “Not yet.”

-

It’s raining on the morning they’ve set aside to depart. It sweeps down from the skies in great sheets, rippling and undulating through the streets in sinuous patterns that Ignis can only just discern over the cacophony of water pounding against bare concrete. The vicious lightning storm that had raged all night is only just subsiding, the low rolls of thunder still complaining quietly along the horizon. 

Ignis listens to the storm from the window, a scratchy military grade blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his feet bare to the carpet, now sodden with rain coming in from the broken panes. Prompto isn’t sleeping but he’s pretending to, so Ignis lets him have the moment. Prompto usually needs a little time in the morning to dispel the tears he only sheds when he thinks Gladio and Ignis are sleeping. Gladio had left before dawn, lacing his boots as though going for a run. Ignis feigns ignorance on that as well, though he’s not certain for whose sake he does. 

Gladio does run, several times a day, but he never comes back winded, despite the hitch in his breath. Ignis had trailed him one day, hanging far enough back that his quiet footsteps should not alert Gladio to his presence. It was difficult, with the way sound now echoes, bouncing off the buildings and confusing Ignis’ sense of direction, but in the end, Ignis had found Gladio in a small greenhouse garden toward the back of the citadel yelling himself hoarse at a young king who could not answer back.

The cursing was inventive and cruel and when it was over, Gladio’s voice was ragged when he asked “Now that you know, will you try to stop me?” and Ignis wishes he could have seen Gladio then, see if his back was rigid with furious pride, or bent with unbearable sorrow.

“I do not fault you,” Ignis had said and Gladio barked a small laugh, humourless and empty. Ignis had not bothered Gladio on his runs since, and Gladio pretends Ignis does not know where he is going.

There’s a sniffle from Prompto’s bedroll, and Ignis withdraws from the window. “Shall I make us breakfast?” Ignis asks gently, both knowing Prompto’s ruse is broken.

Prompto must shake his head because there’s a moment of silence and then a hurriedly stuttered “M-maybe later.”

“Perhaps later, then,” Ignis agrees returning to his pack to put on his own boots. They go on smoothly, the laces easy after so many days of practice, but the jacket still feels heavy, like it’s pressing him down into the ground deeper than ever.

“There is something I must do,” he says, straightening and turning in Prompto’s direction. “Please do not leave without me.”

He means it as a joke but the delivery is flat, almost desperate, and Prompto is quick to reassure, his words tripping over themselves in his usual nervous staccato. After a moment, Prompto asks if Ignis needs help.

“This I must do alone,” Ignis says softly, not sure if he’s being entirely truthful, and if not, for whose sake. He slips out the door and down the wide hallways of the citadel. He should feel weird about squatting in an empty palace but none of them had wanted to suggest leaving, and so they stayed. It is a convenience, at least for this, Ignis thinks, as he climbs the stairs to the throne room, foregoing the elevator in favour of making his thighs burn and his breath quicken. He uses it as an excuse as to why his pulse is pounding in his ears.

His footsteps echo his heartbeat as they tap across the floor. He’s avoided coming back here, letting Prompto and Gladio take care of what needed to be done. There’s a pang of guilt to be found at that, and Ignis tries to make up for it with cooking and planning, and finding a car to take them wherever they may go, even if he never apologizes properly.

He stands at the foot of the dias, like his dream but not. In this, he’s alone, not flanked by Prompto and Gladio, matching piles of sand. He listens to the rain thundering down through the collapsed wall, feels the wetness driven in by the wind.

His mouth twists and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep his lips flat, his face expressionless even as his shoulders shudder forward. 

There’s a noise at the far end of the room. Ignis stops breathing, just long enough to hear one boot planted firmly on the ground followed by another.

“Gladio,” Ignis says, glad his voice can stay so flat even as his chest feels like it’s going to cave in.

“Prompto said you’d went off on your own. He’s worried about you.”

“There’s no need. I’m just -”. Ignis trails off. 

“Saying goodbye,” Gladio supplies at last. 

Gladio’s footsteps are unexpectedly light for a man of his size. It’s not something Ignis had ever really noticed until that became his primary way of identifying people. They slide almost silently against the once polished floor and stop just shy of where Ignis stands. 

Ignis doesn’t move, or even respond. He can almost hear Gladio breathing over the drone of the rain, small measured puffs of breath at his shoulder. He should say something but he has nothing. Finally, Gladio huffs. “You miss him,” he says and it’s surprisingly gentle.

Ignis turns, squares his shoulders toward Gladio. He doesn’t know what he would find in Gladio’s face if he could see it so he tips his head and listens instead, listens for the familiar hitch right before Gladio raised his voice, or the drop in breath that foretold some inventive cursing. 

When there’s nothing but silence, Ignis shrugs. “Don’t you?”

Ignis almost flinches when Gladio’s hand lands heavily on his shoulder. “I should be pissed that you even asked me that,” Gladio says, and trails off like he’s about to add more, but he doesn’t and Ignis turns, dislodging Gladio’s hand.

“I have been a bit absent of late,” Ignis says, once more facing the throne. Gladio grunts in agreement. 

“Have you even cried yet?”

Ignis flexed his jaw and didn’t answer. 

“Didn’t think so,” Gladio said, his voice coloured with distaste. “Look man, I know you’re all stoic and proper but you need to actually deal with this.”

“You mean like you have?” Ignis snaps and cringes at the bite in his tone. Ten years ago, Gladio would have cuffed him for that, but that was before. Gladio just sucks in a breath and Ignis sneers suddenly furious at everything taken from him. “Shall I rant and rage like an uncivilized beast? That is how you handle things that displease you, isn’t it? Beat it until it’s dead. Well, I have news for you, Gladio. Noct’s already dead. This is one thing your anger can’t kill.”

There’s a heat creeping up the back of Ignis’ neck, and his hands tremble, clenched into fists he hadn’t even noticed making. 

“You’re not the only one hurting here,” Gladio says sharply. “Gods, I never knew you to be selfish.”

“I’m not -” Ignis says, but Gladio talks over him, raising his voice. 

“Prompto lost his best friend, his only real friend.”

“He’s not -”

“And, yeah, I messed up for a few days, but man, you’ve been checked right out. Where are you at in that head of yours? Don’t tell me you think you’re the only one who feels like there’s a giant hole in his chest.”

Ignis drops his chin. His jaw hurts again, aching right into his ears. He fights the way his lips try to pull back into an ugly grimace. “Who am I, Gladio?” he asks. His inhale is embarrassingly wet and Ignis drags a hand beneath his nose, manners be damned. “I don’t know who I am anymore. My whole life has been Noct. I am - I am nobody without him.”

Gladio is only standing a couple of feet away. It takes him one quick step to cover the distance and Ignis steels himself for an embrace. It doesn’t come, though probably not because Gladio doesn’t want it. If he were Prompto, Gladio would have tugged him into his arms and let him paint his shirt with tears. If he were Iris, Gladio would tuck him under his arm and lift his chin with his hand until the tears abated. 

 

“Iggy,” Gladio says instead. “Iggy. I’m a shield with no king. I’m supposed to die for him, not the other way around.”

Ignis bites his cheek, waits through a sob so his voice doesn't catch and then says, “You could not have taken that burden from him.”

“No,” says Gladio. “But I still don’t have a king to protect anymore.”

“How do you -”

“How do I move on?” Gladio shrugs. It’s not noisy and full like Prompto’s shrugs, but Ignis can still feel the shift in muscle beside him, hear the flutter of clothing moving. “I get angry, but you know that. I’ll tell you when I figure it out.” This time Gladio does cuff Ignis, light as it may be, around the shoulder. 

“And you’re not nobody. You’re Iggy. You’re more than just an advisor.”

Ignis catches Gladio’s shoulder, flexes his fingers before dropping his hand. “And you are more than just a shield.” 

They fade into silence, listening as the rain lets up, feel the sun peek out through the clouds. Ignis closes his eye and breathes in. Beneath the smell of abandonment and decay, he pretends he can still pick out the scent of the floor polish used every Monday. If he really concentrates he can almost hear the bustle of a busy city far below on the streets. If he opens his eyes now, Noct will be staring at him moodily, grumpy about tomatoes on his burger or a new reading assignment. 

He keeps his eyes closed, a tight barricade against the reality trying to crush him. Instead he drops to a knee, curving his back into a full body bow, nothing like the stiff courteous motions he'd practiced all his life but total supplication. His face twists and this time he lets it, lets the wetness well in his right eye and spill over though he keeps his breathing quiet, his shoulders composed.

“Highness, my king,” he breathes, then, “Noctis, Noctis, what do I do now?”

He doesn't get an answer, not from the empty throne, not from Gladio who stands patiently at his side. He doesn't get an answer but he doesn't need one at least not right away. He has time to figure it out. He presses a palm to his eye, then takes one last shuddering breath before standing.

“Okay,” he says at last. “I’ll be okay, now.”


End file.
